Top Posts & Pages

Translate

YA

Hello there Bookers and Good Morning! In today’s’ post, I am going to be reviewing one of my most recent reads, They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera. I finished this novel on February 6th as a buddy read.

What made me want to pick up this book, you ask? No, not the hype. Frankly, the cover and plot-line are what caught my attention the most. I am a sucker for death/mental illness books, and the fact that it is LGBTQ+ is a bonus.

»»————- ✼ ————-««

Summary:

The story follows Mateo and Rufus who have never met up until they receive a phone call from Death Cast announcing that they will be meeting their death in 24 hours. They come across an app called Last Friend where they find each other and decide to be just that, each other’s last friend. The novel carries the life of these two before and after their deaths.

»»————- ✼ ————-««

Review:

On Goodreads, I rated 4 out of 5 stars, but the better rating would be a 3.75. Yes. A 3.75. My reasoning? Well, if you may ask, I feel as if this book is too good to be under a 3.5, but also had too many ideas that I wasn’t fond of and therefore could not be rated above a 4.0. I met halfway with this one. My thoughts are scrambled with this book, so I’ve decided I’ll make a Pros and Cons instead of a well thought out and intellectual review. Sweet (maybe not so much) and to the point.

»»————- ✼ ————-««

(SOME MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD)

Now, for that comparison…

Pros:

The whole receive a phone call 24 hours before you die concept is very intriguing to me. I believe Adam Silvera did a great job with carrying that idea throughout the story.

You not only see the story through the eyes of Mateo and Rufus but a whole bunch of other characters as well. It makes you see the story in all different perspectives in a non-confusing manner.

The reader receives good, but not overwhelming background information for the main characters.

The story was well to the point and short. (Pro and Con)

It made you want to keep reading. The fact that you know the two characters are going to die and there is nothing you can do about it is so heart wrenching!

Cons:

The story as a whole was rather vague and too short to the point. It was a good page length, but the story could have had more substance. The description of the settings were also not well described for the most part. You almost had to guess where the characters were and how their surroundings looked like.

Maybe I wasn’t paying attention at first, but I was so lost the first couple of chapters that the person I was buddy reading with actually had to explain to me what was going on!

I had a little trouble finding character connections. I connected with a few characters on some things, but for the most part, none were very relatable in my case.

The story was not realistic. This is one of those things that made me rate a little lower than most. I understand that this is just a book and not everything has to be realistic blah blah blah, but it is also a YA contemporary, so in my understanding… shouldn’t it be a little more relatable and sensible than other genres?

Everything in this story just kind of happened. I’m not sure how to explain it, but something would just happen and it would leave you like “Oh, Okay…”

The death of one of the characters was so underdramatic that you could almost forget they ever died.

The ending! What in the world! I am sorry, but I am against how this story ended. No, not because the way it ended wasn’t how I wanted, but because there was no closure. In fact, I’m not even sure how one of the characters died. It was unclear.

The romance between Mateo and Rufus is one good example of this novel being unrealistic and unclear for that matter. It just spontaneously happened with almost no warning whatsoever. My buddy and I actually went back looking for hints in which we found very few and hazy ones. This is where this review gets even more controversial. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I LOVE LGBTQ+ books. I am an active supporter of the community and always will be, BUT, with this story, I not only did not feel a connection at all between Mateo and Rufus, but I feel as if it was not meant to be, to begin with. From the beginning, I believed what they had, or were creating was a strong friendship, maybe even bromance, but barely even that. I’m not sure if their friendship even fully developed before POOF, they are kissing. I never knew coming into this book that it was an LGBTQ+ so it surprised me even more- and not necessarily in a bad way at all.

»»————- ✼ ————-««

With all that being said, I never intended it to seem like I was bashing on this book or hating on its content. I just simply disagreed with it in many ways and felt the need to express that publically. That is not to say that I did not enjoy reading this. I am very glad that my partner and I decided to choose this book for our buddy-read. Most importantly, I obtained a very meaningful message from this story, and that is:

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”

― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

Good Morning Book-Gods! Smile and be happy and let that happiness spread everywhere you go. Life is a beautiful thing and you only have it once! This morning, one of the first things I did after taking my morning whiz (probably not something that everyone needed to know…) was pick up and finish reading. I then rated and reviewed it on Goodreads and continued on to some group updates. Lately, I’ve been joining more and more groups on Goodreads because I love the satisfaction of having so many book-lovers surround me. It’s at an unhealthy level now… Through this, I found a yearly reading challenge by Addicted to Ya and proceeded to fill out the template as a plan of books I will read for each prompt. Now, if any of you have been with me since the bumpy begging of this blogging journey, you would know that my challenges, plans, and schedules, don’t always work as I imagine, BUT I am full of hope that I can make 2018 the year where that changes.

That aside, for the actual challenge. Here are the books I plan to read. Some are left blank as I will add them after I read a book that follows the guidelines, or if I find one in my TBR later in life. This list will be updated on this post and eventually, every book will be crossed out. Also to clarify, the title is labeled “My Goodreads Challenge #1” just because there are about 5 other challenges I signed up or in the past few days (like I said… its gone wild.)

2018 Reading ChallengeJanuary 1 – December 31

1. Read a fantasy novel
2. Read a dystopian novel-3. Read a mystery/thriller novel– (1/29/18)
4. Read a historical fiction novel-5. Read a contemporary/mental health novel- (1/15/18)6. Read a classic novel- (1/13/18)
7. Read a graphic novel-8. Listen to an audiobook- (1/19/18)
9. Read a standalone novel-
10. Start a series you’ve been eyeing for a while-
11. Complete a series (or read its latest release)-
12. Reread a book you love-
13. Read a diverse book-
14. Read a 2018 release-
15. Read an author that’s new to you-
16. Read a book by a favorite author that you haven’t read yet-
17. Read a book that makes you laugh-18. Read a tearjerker- (2/21/18)
19. Read a book that scares you-
20. Read a book that features magic-
21. Read a book you abandoned in the past-
22. Read a book that is perfect for vacation-23. Read a book with an OTP you can’t get enough of– (2/9/18)
24. Read a book that features a kick-ass female heroine-
25. Read a book in one day-
26. Read a book in which the MC has the same profession as you or your dream job-
27. Read a book set in a cold climate-
28. Read a book set in another country-
29. Read a book set somewhere you’d love to visit or relocate to-
30. Read a book set in your state/territory-31. Read a book translated into English– (2/2/18)
32. Read a book written by a foreign author-
33. Read a banned book-
34. Read a book by a young author (under 30)-
35. Read a book recommended by a friend-
36. Read a New York Times Bestseller (any month/year)-
37. Read a book that was a gift-38. Read a book with a buddy on Goodreads- (2/21/18)
39. Read a book “everyone” has read but you-
40. Read a book that has been on your TBR for over two years-
41. Read a book with a captivating first line-
42. Read a short story collection-
43. Read a book that is over 500 pages-
44. Read a book that was made into a movie-
45. Read a book that was adapted for a television series-
46. Read a book you chose because of the cover-
47. Read a book with your favorite color on the cover-
48. Read a book with something edible on the cover-
49. Read a book with an animal on the cover-
50. Read a book with a metallic/glossy cover-
51. Read a book with a number in the title-
52. Read a book with a color in the title-

I am thinking of updating this challenge once a month on this blog. Also, any of the books you see here are prone to be moved around and changed.

“The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.”

–Melody Beattie

Good Morning! I hope everyone’s day is starting out just right, if it’s not, hang in there, it only gets better from here.

Here is my review of The Art Of Starving, by: Sam J. Miller:

Well. That was unexpected. I wanted badly to enjoy this book because I love other books just like it, LGBTQ+ / Mental illness. Something about it though made the process of reading it dreadful and long. It was not a bad read at all, I think it was just… odd. I can’t put my finger on it…

It could be the fact that he had super powers and his thought process through it all. I’m not the biggest fan of fantasy so that might be the cause of my low rating. If not, then it was the plot line. I feel as if there was no real substance to the story. Yes I understand the ending and why it occurred, but the other nonsense in between seemed useless.

Originally, I was going to give this a 3 Star, then I switched to giving it 3 stars, but reviewing it as a 2.5. I finally decided on rating it a 2/2.5. Sometimes, when I rate books low, I think about re-reading just to see if I missed something, but with this one, I don’t have the motivation to go through it all again.

Of course this is just one mind and one opinion, and many other reviews and ratings contradict my reflection, but this is how I felt throughout this novel.

Even with all this being said, I did stop and think about some things said in this story. Some concepts were interesting to look at from a struggling teenage boy’s point of view. With this, I probably (probably being emphasized) would recommend this to particular people, but to a general point, if asked if they should read this I would say no. Again, this is just me being blunt and honest. I respect everyone else’s opinions/reviews and am aware that others may think differently.